Solaris 10 live upgrade to Solaris10 09/10 (update 9)

Solaris 10 09/10 (update 9) is the latest release of solaris. This release includes auto registration feature.
This feature needs to be disable before booting the server if you indent not to register the system.

While upgrading with luupgrade , registration can be disabled with -k keyword., where filename is a text file contain the keyword " auto_reg=disable " with out quotes.

On a Solaris 10 u9 system , regadm status shows like this after its disabled.

root# regadm status
Solaris Auto-Registration is currently disabled

Well the -k key is not included with the previous release of SUNWlucfg, so I installed it from the U9 dvd image.

1) Download the Solaris 10_u9 zip file and unzip it to the ISO image. Copy the file to the sun server.

2) lofi mount the ISO image

# lofiadm -a /export/home/jibby/sol-10-u9-ga-sparc-dvd.iso /dev/lofi/1

# mount -F hsfs -o ro /dev/lofi/1 /mnt

4) Remove the package and install the latest package from the dvd image , this needs to be done  else the -k   keyword wont work

# pkgrm SUNWlucfg SUNWluu SUNWlur
# cd /mnt/Solaris_10/Tools/Installers
# ./liveupgrade20 -noconsole - nodisplay

# pkgchk -v SUNWlucfg SUNWlur SUNWluu

Current root file system is on c0t0d0s0 (solenv1) and I'm copying it to the second disk c0t1d0s0 (solenv2)
I've a seprate /var FS , which I need to combine with / file system.
I've a /zone mounted for zones , which I'm not merging , instead using as a shared FS.
I've one zone installed called neo.

5) Creating a BE with name solenv2 and naming the current BE as solenv1, the merged keyword is used to indicate that we are merging it with the parent FS.

root# lucreate -c solenv1 -m /:/dev/dsk/c0t1d0s0:ufs -m /var:merged:ufs -n solenv2


6) Upgrade the BE solenv2 with latest release by pointing it to the DVD image.

root# luupgrade -u -k /path/reg_file -n solenv2 -s /mnt/

7) Check the status with lustatus

root# lustatus

Boot Environment           Is       Active Active          Can    Copy
Name                       Complete Now    On Reboot Delete Status
-------------------------- -------- ------ --------- ------ ----------
solenv1                           yes       yes          yes           no          -
solenv2                           yes         no            no          yes        -

8) Activate the BE solenv2.

root# luactivate solenv2


root# lustatus

Boot Environment           Is       Active Active    Can    Copy
Name                       Complete Now    On Reboot Delete Status
-------------------------- -------- ------ --------- ------ ----------
solenv1                    yes      no     no        yes    -
solenv2                    yes      yes    yes       no     -


9) Reboot the system with init 6

root# init 6 ( dont use reboot)

10) The machine boots into the disk slice c0t1d0s0 and you can see the /var merged within the root FS. The release version shows the latest version, the zone neo is also upgraded to the latest release.

root# cat /etc/release
                   Oracle Solaris 10 9/10 s10s_u9wos_14a SPARC
     Copyright (c) 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
                            Assembled 11 August 2010
ahaa..just now I noticed , Oracle Solaris :)

11) Once confirmed everything is fine you can delete the solenv1

root# ludelete solenv1

Determining the devices to be marked free.
Updating boot environment configuration database.
Updating boot environment description database on all BEs.
Updating all boot environment configuration databases.
Boot environment deleted.

root# lustatus

Boot Environment           Is       Active Active          Can     Copy
Name                       Complete Now    On Reboot  Delete Status
-------------------------- -------- ------ --------- ------ ----------
solenv2                           yes       yes           yes          no        -

So thats it , we are upgraded to the latest release. I never copied swap filesystem. you can specify seprate swap FS.
I did it with out proper planning and now I'm utilizing 2 disks. I realized i need everything on c0t0d0s0 and I want to merge /zones with the root filesystem., well start again , but this time no need to upgrade.

 root# lucreate -c solenv2 -m /:/dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0:ufs -m /zones:merged:ufs -n solenv1

root# lustatus

Boot Environment           Is       Active Active         Can     Copy
Name                       Complete Now    On Reboot Delete  Status
-------------------------- -------- ------ --------- ------ ----------
solenv2                          yes      yes        yes             no       -
solenv1                         yes      no          no              yes       -

root# luactivate solenv1

root# lustatus

Boot Environment           Is       Active   Active       Can    Copy
Name                       Complete Now    On Reboot Delete Status
-------------------------- -------- ------ --------- ------ ----------
solenv2                           yes      yes         no        no         -
solenv1                          yes      no           yes       no         -

 # init6

root# lustatus

Boot Environment           Is       Active Active    Can    Copy
Name                       Complete Now    On Reboot Delete Status
-------------------------- -------- ------ --------- ------ ----------
solenv2                    yes      no     no        yes    -
solenv1                    yes      yes    yes       no     -

# ludelete solenv2

ESXi 4.1- Windows 2008 server console. Poor mouse performance.

I provisioned a new Windows 2008 server and after installing  the vmware tools I found that the mouse performance was not optimal. This is due to the wrong graphics driver installed by the vmware tools. A solution for this is to install the correct graphics driver manually ( vmware SVGA 3D). the steps are as follows. You need a reboot, so plan it.

1) Right click on the desktop and select screen resolution or personalize/display settings) and choose advance settings link.

2) Choose the adapter tab, it will show the current adapter. Here it is VMware SVGA II , click on properties

3)  Select the driver tab and click the update driver tab  as shown in the figure.

4)  Click on browse my computer to install the driver software. the location of the driver is
c:/Program Files/Common Files/ VMware/Drivers/wddm_video

5)  Click Next , this will install the driver and display the next screen below. You need to reboot the computer to take effect.

Thats it , after reboot the mouse performance is optimal and I heard this issue is with window 7 too.

ESXi 4.1 Unable to install / upgrade VMware Tools on Guest OS

Recently I was trying to upgrade vmware tools on a windows 2008 guest and I got an error

"Unable to install VMware Tools. An error occurred while trying to access image file "/usr/lib/vmware/isoimages/windows.iso" needed to install VMware Tools: 2 (No such file or directory). If your product shipped with the VMware Tools package, reinstall VMware ESX, then try again to install the VMware Tools package in the virtual machine.   The required VMware Tools ISO image does not exist or is inaccessible."

Further investigation through remote tech support into the ESXi host I found that the iso image is missing from the directory and the directory is 100% full, which must be the reason for not installing the tool images. I found that old tool images are not removed from the system and as a result while upgrading , its not able to copy the new images due to file system full.

I guess this issue is due to a upgrade from esxi4 u1 to esxi4.1. Somehow the upgrade didnt went well or some other issue. But the ESXi server is up and running and hosting more than 100 vms. I dont want to reinstall the ESXi on the host. ESXi 4.1 comes with resmote tech support , no need to go through unsupported way anymore

I fix the issue by copying the image file from a working ESXi4.1 server.

1) Start the remote tech support (SSH), Click on the ESXi host on the left panel, go to configuration ,
on the software section click on Security profile, Click properties on the right top corner, click remote
tech support and click option and start the ssh.

2) Use putty to ssh into the ESXi host and delete the old images files from the below location

/vmfs/volumes/e00f98e1-2bcc0c91-e7a2-3487611c1557/packages/4.0.0/vmtools

3) Using winscp to copy files to the ESXi host location, provided you already copy the image files from a working ESXi 4.1 server to the laptop/desktop. Copy to below location:

/vmfs/volumes/e00f98e1-2bcc0c91-e7a2-3487611c1557/packages/4.1.0/vmtools.

4) Copy the  .iso, .sig and tools-key.pub. files, because all these files required if you want to upgrade the vmware tools.

Thats its close the winscp, putty and Dont forget to stop the remore tech support(SSH). Now right click on the VM ->guest -> Install/upgrade  vmware tools.


There is another way where you can copy the iso image (windows.iso) to the local datastore and mount the iso image and start the installation. This you have to mount and umount the iso image each time for every VMs. If you have only few VMs this will be easy way but tedious for 100 VMs.

Unable to obtain hardware information for the selected machine - vCenter converter error

I was moving an RHEL6 64 bit VM to another host through vCenter converted standalone 4.0.1 build 161434 and I got the following error " Unable to obtain hardware information for the selected machine " .

I figure it out that the issue is due to the Guest Operating System version. RHEL 6 version is not supported with vConverter. The workaround is to edit the vm settings, change the GOS version to RHEL5  and move the machine. Once its moved , before powering on, change the version back to original version.

How to remove Netapp VSC 1.0 plugin / uninstalling VSC 1.0 plugin

I was installing Netapp VSC 2.0 (Virtual Storage Console) on my vCenter server, while installing it asked me to uninstall the old version of VSC and RCU from the vCenter server. I went to the control panel and uninstall the program manually. After uninstalling VSC, I found that the plug-in is not removed. (vSphere client-manage plug-in) see the snapshot below

I dont know why its not removed, I found a way to remove the plug-in through Managed object browser.
1) Go to the browser and type the address of your vCenter server like below and it will open the mob window for you. Once the window is open , on the properties table click on the content
     https://vcenterserver/mob

( Click on the content link)


2) Next window on the properties table  click on the Extension Manager

3) On the next screen , properties table, check for the netapp extension (com.netapp.exoforce)

4) Click on the extension list and look at the properties table and copy the key string ( com.netapp.exoforce)

5) Once copied the string , go back on the browser window(previous page) and look for unregister Extension on the Methods table.

6) On the next screen , paste the copied string and click invoke Method , you will get the status as " Method Invocation Result: void ".

7) Thats it , close the window and log into vSphere Client. If you already logged in , log out and log back

The plug-in is removed and now you can proceed to install the VSC 2.0. This not a mandatory for installing VSC 2.0, but I like the plug-in manager to look clean. that's why..

Upgrading to ESXi 4.1 with vihostupdate Utility

 vihostupdate Utility

If you have a standalone ESXi host, upgrading to 4.1 is very simple. If your hosts are connected through vCenter, then you need to upgrade vCenter server first.

Note that you cannot upgrade your host through the following methods

• VMware vCenter Update Manager. vSphere module that supports direct upgrades from ESX 3.5 and ESX 4.0 to ESX 4.1.

• vihostupdate. Command-line utility that supports direct upgrades from ESX/ESXi 4.0 to ESX/ESXi 4.1. This utility requires the vSphere CLI.

• esxupdate. Command-line utility for ESX 4.0 to ESX 4.1

• esxupgrade.sh script. For ESX 3.5 hosts that do not have network access. 

Only the first 2 methods can be used to upgrade the ESXi hosts. Here I used the vihostupdate Utility.

Procedure is as follows, here I installed through vihostupdate.

1) Download the zip file from the vmware site (upgrade-from-ESXi4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip)

2) Keep the file in the local PC or laptop where vSphere CLI is installed. ( I placed on F drive)

3) Put the host in maintenance mode.

4) Invoke the vSphere CLI and update the hosts through below command

The upgrade ZIP bundle contains and esxupdate bulletin and an upgrade bulletin.
Install the esxupdate bulletin first by the command

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\bin>vihostupdate.pl --server vm4 --install --bundle F:\upgrade-from-ESXi4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip -B ESXi410-GA-esxupdate


Then Install the upgrade bulletin by the command:

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\bin>vihostupdate.pl --server vm4 --install --bundle F:\upgrade-from-ESXi4.0-to-4.1.0-0.0.260247-release.zip -B ESXi410-GA

 
Enter username: root
Enter password:

Please wait patch installation is in progress ...
The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.
C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\bin>

5) Reboot the host and exit maintenance mode.

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\bin>vihostupdate.pl --server vm4 -q
Enter username: root
Enter password:
---------Bulletin ID--------- -----Installed----- ----------------Summary-----------------
ESXi410-GA                           T03:55:16          ESXi upgrade Bulletin
ESXi410-GA-esxupdate          T07:29:43          ESXi pre-upgrade Bulletin

ESXi, Installing the CNA card for 10GBE and FCoE

Last week I installed the Q-logic CNA card on the ESXi server through vSphere CLI. It was a Live production machine.
1) Migrated all the VMs to the other machine on the cluster and put the ESXi on maintenance mode.
2) Then shutdown the machine and install the CNA adapter.
3) Power-on the server and it came back to maintenance mode.
4) Download the driver for 10GB Ethernet and FCoE from the Q-logic site ( it will re-direct to vmware site).    
(we need 2 drivers here, one for Ethernet and another for FCOE. The drivers are in ISO format.)
5) Burn the driver to the cd or use an ISO mounter on your Laptop/PC where the vSphere CLI is installed. ( here I mounted on drive H)
6) Start-Program-vmware-vSphere CLI, launch the CLI and install the driver by below command

C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vSphere CLI\bin> vihostupdate.pl --server vm3 --install --bundle H:\offline-bundle\qlgc-qlge-100.2.1-offline_bundle-261179.zip
Enter username: root
Enter password:
Please wait patch installation is in progress ...
The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective.

7) Install the driver for FCoE (qlg.831.k1.23vmw-offline_bundle-207277.zip) also the same way. reboot the server and it will be back to maintenance mode
Check the adapter by click on configuration-network adapters.